


Normal, But Not Quite

by OlkarianPrincess



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monsters, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Halloween, Humor, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 19:44:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12589200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlkarianPrincess/pseuds/OlkarianPrincess
Summary: Team Voltron finds themselves in another reality. Things seem pretty normal, except Pidge happens to have fangs and glowing red eyes.Monster!AU for VLD Halloween





	Normal, But Not Quite

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the wonderful @kitroc on Tumblr. 
> 
> You requested a Monster!AU for treat! I hope you enjoy it!!!!!!!
> 
>  
> 
> Minor warning for leg getting hurt, but no graphic details or anything.  
> Also cussing.

“No, no, no, not again!” Hunk yelled after he stood up and saw the barren land that was most certainly not the Castle of Lions.

“That purple bastard!” Keith shouted, the second of the paladins to regain consciousness.

The rest of the paladins groaned and, one by one, rose to their feet only to be greeted with the sight of an arid, brown land. Mountains jutted out of the cracked earth and surrounded them on all four sides. Most notably, however, was the shimmering liquid that was slowly seeping into the crevices of the ground that they stood on. It seemed out of place on the desert planet that surrounded them. All-in-all, only six members of their team woke up together: Allura, Lance, Keith, Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge.

“Let’s be careful,” Allura remarked. “I have a feeling we’re in another reality again, but we can’t be sure.”

“Oh I think we can,” Lance interrupted.

The team followed his gaze to a shimmering white spot nestled amongst the mountains. Like an opalescent stone, it reflected the harsh light of the twin suns. Allura gasped.

“Is that the castle of lions?”

It was not long before the group decided that the best course of action would be to investigate. They had little hope of survival otherwise, for there was neither flora nor fauna to be seen - and certainly not a hint of water anywhere. The walk was quite tiring and frustrating - doubly so as a result of Lance and Hunk’s constant complaining. The yellow paladin felt the most unsettled about the whole ordeal and the rest of the team, having experienced Hunk’s accuracy in predicting trouble, resolved to be extra careful. They did not want a repeat of what had happened in the only other reality they’d come across.

“Are we there yet?” Hunk groaned.

“Yeah are we-“ Allura’s hand shot out and clamped over Lance’s mouth.

“Shush!” she whispered, “Do you hear that?”

_ Crunch, crunch. _

The paladins froze in place and strained their ears to listen. Suddenly, Allura was dragging them by the hand behind an outcropping of rocks. The soft padding of feet on the brown gravel grew closer and they all held their breath.

_ Crunch, crunch. _

Holding in a whimper, Lance was barely able to keep quiet after Keith jabbed him in the side. Why the man would think that elbowing was an effective deterrent for sneezes, Lance would never know. Nevertheless, he covered his face and did his best to keep calm.

_ Crunch, crunch...crunch. _

Whatever it was had stopped on the other side of their small groups of rocks. Hunk twisted two of his fingers together, silently praying that they’d remain unseen. And then getting distracted and wondering which of the paladins would be killed first in a horror movie. Pidge was too smart, he thought. She, Shiro, and Allura would likely be the last to survive. Keith was pretty knife-y and had the bad boy thing going on, so Hunk thought he’d last until the middle of the movie. Maybe end up as a surprise death. Hunk’s own death would be a motivational point for the team. But he wouldn’t die first. He glanced over at Lance who was barely keeping it together. Hunk shook his head - Lance would be the happy pretty boy that’s the first to go.

_ Crunch. _

The paladins turned around in unison, the sound suddenly behind them. Eyes wide and faces pale, they didn’t believe what they saw.

The woman stared back at them, just as frozen in place as they were.

“Oh fuck,” the words slipped from her mouth and they all thought how uncanny it was that even her voice sounded just like Pidge’s.

“You’re...me?” Pidge - the normal Pidge -  was the first to break the silence. “Well just like me except,” she motioned vaguely to the Other Pidge’s face.

“This is not good, nooooot good,” the Other Pidge muttered, fingers racing across the datapad in her hand.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down Pidge - is your name Pidge? I feel like your name is Pidge,” Hunk approached Other Pidge.

Other Pidge’s head snapped up and she stared a few moments at Hunk without blinking.

“Yeah, sorry, my name’s still Pidge in this universe. I’m guessing you’re from an alternate one.”

“That’s our guess as well,” Shiro replied.

Other Pidge opened her mouth to say something to Shiro, shut it, and shook her head. The paladins had already caught sight of her blood red eyes, but it wasn’t until that moment that they all finally noticed her fangs. No one felt comfortable enough to say anything. No one except Pidge.

“I have fangs in this universe?” Pidge practically ran up to Other Pidge.

“Sure do,” Other Pidge replied with a full grin.

“How come?” Pidge questioned.

“It’s a condition,” Other Pidge waved her off, “Returning to the important stuff. I think I know why you’re here but we need to move fast and quietly. I’ll have to confirm my hypothesis in my lab, but no one can see you. No. One.” She met each of their eyes, resting on Lance’s a little longer than everyone else’s.

“Can I help at all?” Pidge asked.

“Is the gravitational constant six point seven times ten to the negative eleventh power?” Other Pidge responded.

Lance groaned, “Let’s get moving, nerds.”

The Other Pidge laughed before directing them to the castle. They went the “back way,” which was apparently code for “the path with lots of extra climbing.” Every time one of the paladins complained or asked why they couldn’t walk up to the castle the normal way, Other Pidge hushed them. “I’ll explain when we get there,” she’d whisper. “Stop complaining, it’s not that bad. I do this every day.” “I thought you were paladins of Voltron not paladins of whine-tron.” “No I’m not evil. Yes I can hear you whispering to Keith, Lance.”

When they finally reached the castle, they were pleased to find that it looked almost exactly the same on the inside as their own. Upon entering Other Pidge’s lab, Hunk and Lance crashed on the floor, Keith found a counter to lean on, Allura and Shiro tried to get information from Other Pidge about what was going on (and why), and Pidge fluttered about the lab, touching everything and comparing it to her equipment in their reality. The explanation that Other Pidge provided was simple enough. Unlike the last time they’d jumped realities, this occurrence was caused by tampering on both ends. Experiments that Other Pidge was conducting coincided with happenings in their reality. The news caused Allura’s frown to deepen.

“What was it you called him, Keith?” she turned to address him.

“What? Oh. You mean when I said he was a ‘purple bastard.’”

“Yes! Purple bastard,” she scowled as she spoke the last phrase.

Lance held back his laughter.

“The only thing I don’t understand is-” Other Pidge began.

“It wouldn’t happen to do with this, would it?” Pidge produced a vial from her pocket.

It contained a sample of the shimmering liquid that they’d found on the planet.

Other Pidge’s eyes went wide.

“Fuck.”

“Pidge...,” Shiro scolded.

Other Pidge didn’t even miss a beat, “You’re not my Shiro. Can’t tell me what to do.”

She snatched the sample from Pidge’s hand and walked towards the door.

“If you could check the readings on the machine over in the corner while I’m gone, that would be great. Hunk - my Hunk, not you Hunk - has equipment in his room that I need to analyse this so I’ll be back but, uh-” Pidge paused and stared off into the hall, “Yeah it may be a while before I can get back, so hold tight. The door will be locked - don’t say anything if someone knocks and Do. Not. Leave. I want to minimize your exposure to our reality. It could be...you know. Just stay here.”

As soon as the door shut behind Other Pidge, Pidge had her hand around Hunk’s jacket and was dragging him to one corner of the room. She raced to the machine Other Pidge had told her about and darted back to Hunk. The rest of the group stared at the two of them as they worked silently for a while. And then they turned to face the team, smiles on their faces.

“We can talk now,” Pidge announced.

“We couldn’t before?” Allura questioned.

“No, she had a security system setup. At first I was going to disable it, but there’s the whole chess against yourself and we know how that works out so...” Pidge turned to Hunk.

“I was able to disable it!” Hunk exclaimed gleefully.

The duo high-fived each other.

“What were you working on, then?” Shiro asked Pidge.

“Oh, just making sure that this castle’s ventilation system is the same as ours. It is.”

“You aren’t thinking about crawling up there, are you?” Keith asked, folding his arms in disapproval.

“Think about it. Doesn’t it seem suspicious that she doesn’t want us to look around? And weren’t the good guys in the last reality we went too actually kinda really super evil?” Lance came to Pidge’s defence.

“They have a point,” Shiro seemed convinced.

“Shiro’s on our side, that means you have to listen,” Pidge grinned. “Here’s the plan...”

And so the plan was followed. Shiro hoisted Pidge up into the vents and she began her reconnaissance mission, communicating with the team through a comm link that she’d put together. The idea was simple enough: make sure that everything was okay with this reality’s Team Voltron and get back undetected. The execution...not so much.

It started off well. Pidge crawled through quietly on her stomach, ignoring Lance and Hunk’s chatter in her ear, and keeping her eyes open for anything suspicious.

“I FOUND KEITH!” her voice, which was a whisper on her end, blasted through the speaker in the lab.

“Is he as moody as usual?” Lance’s voice came through to her end, and was followed by an “owe” as well as a “stop elbowing me, Keith! I’m getting bruises!”

Pidge snickered.

“He seems normal to me. Except, wait. What the hell?”

“What is it?” this time it was Keith’s voice that came through.

Pidge peered through the crack of the ventilation panel.

“He’s kind of fuzzy...”

“You need to shave, man,” Hunk’s voice interrupted.

“Hey!” Keith cut in.

“Quit it. You’re not getting what I mean. He has fur. Keith has fur! And ears! And...oh god.”

“What?” the rest of the team yelled.

“I’m not going to tell you if you keep yelling in my ear.”

“Sorry Pidge,” Shiro’s voice was soft, “please tell us what’s going on.”

“For you Shiro, anything,” she responded. On the other end, Shiro tried to hide the pink that was suddenly coloring his cheeks. “This Keith...well, he has a tail.”

“She’s lying. Are you lying?” Keith nearly yelled.

“I don’t lie,” Pidge huffed.

“Pidge doesn’t lie,” Shiro backed her up.

“She lied about her entire identity and her gender!” Hunk and Lance shrieked in unison.

“Oh,” Shiro was at a loss for words. He wanted to support Pidge but...they had a point.

“Ugh, just check your communicator,” Pidge growled. She positioned the camera on hers in between the crack of the vent and snapped a shot of Keith, sending it off to the team before moving on. He was fluffy and fuzzy, but he seemed relatively harmless.

Pidge tuned out her team as she made her way through the dust-filled crawlspace to find the rest of the Other Team. The red-eyed, fanged Other Pidge may have been similar to her in many ways, but a tendency to use the vents to travel did not appear to be one of them. She pouted, remembering her clean ones back at their castle. It wasn’t like they had been spotless after 10,000 years of disuse, but she’d done her best to keep them dust free since becoming a paladin of Voltron. Her thoughts of vents and cleanliness were swept away by the flash of purple flesh that she spotted when peering through one of the vent openings.

“Hey I think I found-”

He moved quickly, and so she followed.

“Found who, Pidge?” Shiro’s voice pulled her mind back to center.

“Lotor...”

Finally managing a full view of him, her thoughts were once again captivated. It was Lotor, there was no doubt about it, but the bolts sticking out of either side of his neck were new. Not to mention the varying color of his skin, as if he’d been patched together from other Galra. Once again, she felt it necessary to send her team a photo. And once again, she was about to move on from the strange sight. This time, however, a voice kept her from leaving.

“Lotor,” her brother spoke from the other side of the vent panel.

“Is someone speaking?” Allura questioned over the comms.

“It’s Matt. He and Lotor seem to have business together. They...are they friends? Nope, nope, nope - that’s not friends. Definitely not friends. Nope. Did not need to see that. I’m out of here.”

“Pidge what’s wrong?” Shiro called out.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

She tried to clean the image of Lotor and Matt kissing from her mind, but was only met with a vision so much worse - and yet also so much better. Her heart stopped beating when she saw it. The Other Pidge was there, in a room that she’d seen a few times before, but it was not one belonging to Hunk. She watched on as the Other Pidge smiled brightly at Shiro, to whom the room belonged to, and fondly caressed his cheek. 

“You know I’m busy, right,” Other Pidge spoke in a tone of mock annoyance.

“I know,” Shiro stared at her with a warm smile, “but can’t a man miss his partner,” he kissed the back of her hand - stealing Pidge’s breath as an unintended consequence of the action, “my life,” he kissed her forehead, “my vampire queen,” he placed the last kiss on her cheek.

“Pidge!”

Her focus finally snapped back into place at the sound of Shiro’s voice. Unfortunately, however, she reacted with a loud yelp.

“What was that?” Other Shiro questioned.

“Shit, shit, shit, they heard me,” Pidge talked, half to herself and half to her team.

“Move! Get back here quickly!” Allura shouted.

“I’m trying!”

Crawling through the vents as fast as she could, Pidge attempted to get back to the paladins, but her attempt was in vain. Just as she’d gotten far enough away from the pair she’d been spying on, the metal gave out beneath her and she fell. A sharp pain shot through her leg as her body hit the ground, and she was only able to hold in a shout by biting on the shoulder of her shirt.

“What was that noise? Are you okay? Pidge? Pidge!” Shiro shouted.

“I’m okay,” Pidge responded, choking back tears, “I fell though, and,” her leg gave out beneath her as she tried to stand, “okay not okay. I fell and my leg is hurt.”

“We’re coming!” Hunk shouted.

“No!”

But it was too late, the paladins were out the door and on their way to Pidge. Her heart danced at the kindness and love that her friends showed her, but it did not forget the couple she’d seen together nor the fact that bad things would happen if she were to be caught. Propping herself against the wall, she did her best to make her way to her friends. It was only a matter of minutes before a pair of strong arms eased the burden that moving with a hurt leg had caused. Shiro was a sight for sore eyes, and his action of carrying her on his back was a true godsend. Now with their green paladin, the team raced back to the room, but voices in the hallway ahead of them caused a detour. It seemed as though they were surrounded - every way they turned resulting in a near encounter with one of the Other Team. And then they heard Other Pidge’s voice.

“We have to go quickly!” Pidge urged.

“That door!” Lance shouted, pointing at the door that would (supposedly) lead to the lounge.

“Let’s go!” they followed Allura in.

“NO!” from behind them, the Other Pidge’s voice rang out.

But it was too late. The team was through the door to the lounge and face to face with the one, the only, the legendary Coran. And, as it turned out, his name of “Coran, Coran, the Gorgeous Man,” was more than just a silly title in this reality. Upon laying their eyes on him, each of the paladins felt their chest swell with a warm, bubbling sensation.

“You are truly beautiful,” Lance knelt before Coran.

“Oh dear,” Coran responded, yanking his hand away from Lance’s grasp.

“A god amongst men,” Hunk let out a sigh.

“Piiiiiidge!” Coran yelled.

An out of breath, fanged Pidge skirted into the room, pausing a moment to rest her hands on her knees.

“It’s too late. I knew this would happen,” she muttered to herself.

“You knew about our...guests?” Coran held his hand against Keith’s forehead, keeping the man from wrapping his arms around him. 

“Well, that’s a funny story, see...” Pidge avoided eye contact.

“A funny story? I’m sure we’d all like to hear it,” Shiro entered the room, followed by the rest of the team - including Lotor and Matt.

“Quiznak.”

Following a glass of tea, brewed by Hunk in a large cauldron and administered by a frowning Coran, the original Team Voltron sat on the lounge’s couch and tried to wrap their heads around what had happened. Once they’d gotten over the fact that Allura was, in fact, transparent and floating, they’d all calmed down.

“So you’re telling me that you, who is this reality’s me, are a witch?” Hunk questioned Witch Hunk.

“That’s correct.”

“And her majesty here,” Coran motioned to his green paladin, “is a vampire. Vampire queen really.”

“Vampire queen that tried to prevent all of this, I’d like to point out, not that anyone will listen...”

Reaper Shiro wrapped his arm around her and she pressed her face against his chest.

“Shiro is a Grim Reaper, Death Manifest, yada yada,” Coran continued, ignoring Pidge, “Keith,” he waved, “is a werelion. Prince Lotor is the creation of Dr. Honerva. Lance is a merman,” Merman Lance, whose face was framed by blue-green scales, winked at them, “Princess Allura is a selfornalast, which is a type of Altean spirit or fairy, at least that’s the closest human term, and I, as you found out, am an incubus. Are we all on the same page?”

“No wait, go back. So none of you are human?” Hunk questioned.

“I am,” Matt spoke up.

“But Pidge isn’t,” Hunk squinted. “In fact, not only is she not human, but she’s a vampire queen.”

“Yes,” Matt nodded.

“I have just one question then...” Hunk continued.

“Yes?” Coran asked.

“What? How? Why? What? I mean really, what???”

“That’s not...”

Vampire Pidge interrupted her brother, “The Holts are vampire hunters. But also scientists. I guess really it was mom that was a vampire hunter and Matt kind of got both hunter and scientist and really I was supposed to as well, but anyway after Matt and dad left and then I joined the garrison I was bit, but the asshole that bit me was the son of the vampire king. So anyway Hunk and Lance and I ended up killing him and overthrowing the king and his regime and then I became the queen by default I guess. But we left Earth so who knows what’s going on with that fucked up society.” She pushed up her glassed, “Simple, really.”

“Don’t nod Pidge,” Hunk stared at the Pidge from his reality, “that’s not simple, don’t agree with her.”

“Seems simple enough,” Pidge stood up. If she had to stay in a room with Vampire Pidge and Reaper Shiro close together for one more second, she was going to explode. It just wasn’t fair. Not fair at all. “Now, did you figure out what that liquid was?”

“Oh, that,” Pidge responded, “that was actually my fault. I was coming to tell you - whatever happened on your end was pure accident, and I know how to send you back.”

“Great!” Allura clasped her hands together. “While I’d love to hear more about life on Altea as a selfornalast and Coran’s role as one of the few other Altean hybrids in existence, we’re still fighting a war back in our reality.”

“That’s a shame, I’d love to figure out exactly how our stories deviate,” Witch Hunk shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Time to set things back to normal,” Spirit Allura added.

“Yeah,” Pidge glanced at the other Shiro & Pidge and then at Shiro, the gears in her head spinning. “Normal.”

_ Maybe, but not quite. _


End file.
